- Home Delivery Network (HDN) is acquiring the UK domestic parcel business of DHL, subject to regulatory approval. HDN intends to retain all employees and facilities. DHL plans to transfer the operations to HDN by the end of the first quarter of the year.
- Online sales at Marks & Spencer for the 13 weeks to Boxing Day were up 32 percent from the previous third quarter, and overall like-for-like sales were up nearly 2 percent. And after adjusting for the timing of its annual post-Christmas sale, the first day of which fell within the third quarter of 2008 but not that of 2009, “total UK sales were up over 3 percent”, according to a statement.
- UK web sales for 2009 were an estimated £49.8 billion, according to card-fraud prevention firm Retail Decisions, up 21 percent from 2008. Monday, 7th December, was the busiest day of online shopping for the year, with an estimated £534 million in sales, followed by 28th December, the first Monday after Christmas.
- Among the 6,000 small and midsize etailers surveyed by shopping-cart provider ekmPowershop.com, sales in the run-up to Christmas 2009 rose roughly 23 percent from the previous year.
- Another survey, by eCommerce solutions provider Actinic, produced even rosier figures: The small and midsize online sellers it surveyed reported an average 42 percent increase in turnover for November and December 2009 compared with November and December 2008.
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